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=ER.  1902. 


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A  PLAN 


OF 


PREPARING  TEACHERS 


BY 


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FREDERICK    BURK 


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State  Normal  School,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 


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A  Plan  of  Preparing  Teachers 

THE  State  Normal  School  at  San  Francisco  was  estab- 
lished by  Act  of  Legislature,  March  22,   1899.     Upon 
organization,    its  Board    of  Trustees    recognized   that  the  L/ 

state  is  not  in  need,  at  present,  of  a  larger  number  of 
persons  holding  certificates  to  teach.  It  was  determined, 
therefore,  to  make  no  eflEort  to  build  up  a  large  school,  but 
to  bend  all  energies  toward  establishing  a  school  which 
should  graduate  only  teachers  of  superior  efficiency.  In 
determining  upon  this  policy  the  Board  took  measures  to 
guard  against  two  causes  of  failure  which  in  the  history  of 
normal  school  administration,  have  been  more  or  less 
destructive:  (i)  a  low  standard  of  admission,  which  has  made 
it  impossible  to  give,  in  the  limited  period  of  normal  school 
instruction,  necessary  academic  instruction,  the  pedagogics 
of  education,  and  adequate  practical  training;  (2)  personal 
and  political  interference  in  the  administration  of  the  school. 
At  the  meeting  of  the  Joint  Board  of  California  Normal 
Schools  held  July,  1899,  immediately  after  the  organization 
of  the  San  Francisco  Board,  a  resolution  was  adopted 
providing  that  graduation  of  accredited  (high)  schools  with 
credentials  for  admission  to  the  State  University  should  be 
accepted  as  equivalent  to  the  first  two  years  of  the  regular 
normal  school  course  of  four  years.  The  San  Francisco 
school  organized  upon  the  authority  of  this  provision. 

In  the  matter  of  administration  of  the  affairs  of  the 
school,  the  appointment  of  its  faculty,  and  its  internal 
management,  the  Board  in  June,  1901,  after  two  years' 
experience,  upon  motion  of  Trustee  F.  A.  Hyde,  reduced  to 
written  form  its  policy  of  management  in  resolutions  which 
were  unanimously  adopted,  as  follows : 

RESOLUTIONS  DEFINING  POLICY 
Whereas,    State    Normal   Schools  are  supported  and  should  be 
conducted  for  the  sole  purpose  of  supplying  public  schools  with  teachers 
of  the  highest  efficiency ; 


3G202i 


And  Whereas,  The  Trustees  of  the  San  Francisco  State  Normal 
School  desire  that  the  school  shall  be  so  conducted  that  a  certificate  of 
graduation  therefrom  shall  be  esteemed  an  honorable  distinction  by  the 
holder  thereof,  as  being  a  certain  guarantee  of  thorough  training  and 
proficiency  as  a  teacher,  and  so  recognized  by  school  officials; 

Now  Therefore,  be  it  Resolved, 

First — That  it  is  the  determined  policy  of  this  Board  that  the 
faculty  shall  be  selected,  as  heretofore,  upon  a  basis  of  merit  alone, 
wholly  uninfluenced  by  personal  or  political  interference  or  consideration, 
and  the  Trustees  therefore  require  that  all  applications  for  positions  in 
the  faculty  be  first  submitted  to  the  President  of  the  School,  who  will 
nominate  to  the  Board  those  whom  he  may  deem  most  competent  and 
meritorious. 

Second— 'T:hsX  the  President  shall  continue  to  maintain  the  present 
high  standard  of  admission  to  the  school,  and  his  judgment  and  decision 
in  individual  cases  shall  be  final;  and  where,  after  a  fair  trial,  it  shall 
appear  to  him  that  a  student  shows  an  incapacity  to  become  a  thoroughly 
efficient  teacher,  it  shall  be  his  duty  to  discourage  the  student  from  fur- 
ther attendance  at  the  school. 

Third— 'YltidX  the  President  shall  certify  to  the  Trustees  for  gradu- 
ation only  those  students  who  can  be  confidently  and  honestly  recom- 
mended to  School  Trustees,  Superintendents,  and  Boards  of  Education, 
as  teachers  of  undoubted  capability. 

Under  these  conditions,  the  internal  management  of  the 
school  was  intrusted  to  the  faculty  by  the  Trustees.  A  new 
school,  free  from  hampering  traditions  and  conditions,  whose 
Trustees  are  resolved  to  maintain  it  strictly  upon  an  educa- 
tional basis  possesses  by  birthright  certain  advantages. 

General  or  Academic  Scholarship  vs.  Technical  Instruc- 
tion:— The  faculty  determined  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
school  should  give  no  courses  in  general  scholarship  to  do 
which  is  already  the  function  of  the  public  school  system ; 
but  should  direct  its  energy  exclusively  into  the  channels  of 
technical  preparation  for  teaching.  A  normal  school  is  a 
technical  school,  ranking  in  character  with  the  schools  of 
medicine,  engineering,  law  and  trade  learning.  The  public 
school  system  is  expected  to  provide  pupils  with  that  kind 
of  general  knowledge,  culture  and  training  which  concerns 
life  common  to  all  people  whatever  their  occupation  may  be. 
The  technical  school  obtains  students  after  this  general  edu- 
cation and  training  are  accomplished,  and  its  only  concern 
should  be  to  determine  the  stage  of  academic  instruction  at 


which  students  may  be  recruited  into  its  special  service ;  or, 
in  short,  to  set  a  standard  of  academic  knowledge  requisite 
for  admission.  It  is  manifestly  a  serious  breach  of  economy 
to  maintain  a  public  school  system  to  furnish  this  general 
education  and  then  permit  the  technical  schools  to  duplicate 
parts  of  it. 

The  judgment  of  experience  in  America  has  set,  as  a 
reasonable  ideal  of  scholarship  prerequisite  to  normal  train- 
ing, that  scholarship  represented  by  graduation  from  a  high 
school.^  This,  however,  is  an  ideal  which  has  not  actually 
been  realized,  to  any  great  extent,  by  normal  schools.  In 
the  early  stages  of  the  development  of  the  public  school 
system  there  were  few  high  schools.  Normal  schools,  in 
the  dilema,  were  forced  into  the  task  of  giving  a  certain 
amount  of  academic  work  above  the  grade  of  grammar 
school  graduation.  This  was  merely  a  temporary  make- 
shift, and  clearly,  in  a  four  years'  normal  course,  both  the 
academic  work  of  a  high  school  and  the  technical  work  of  a 
normal  school  proper  cannot  be  included  without  slighting 
either  one  or  the  other,  or  both,  and  befogging  the  real  pur- 
pose of  normal  training. 

The  San  Francisco  Normal  School  is  located  in  the 
midst  of  a  very  large  number  of  the  best  high  schools  in  the 
United  States,  and  therefore  the  requirements  for  admission 
were  made  identical  with  those  for  admission  to  the  Slate 
University.  These  requirements  demand  graduation  from 
an  accredited  school  with  a  special  recommendation  from 
the  high  school  principal. 

Thus  the  San  Francisco  Normal  School  stands  for  a 
sharp  distinction  between  general  or  academic  scholarship 
and  the  technical  or  professional  training  special  to  teachers. 
No  courses  whatever  are  given  in  purely  academic  studies 
and  the  school  centers  its  energies  exclusively  upon  profes- 
sional training.  It  must  be  recognized  that  general  scholar- 
ship in  a  teacher  cannot  be  overdone.  As  soon  as  higher 
requirements  in  general  scholarship  can  expediently  be 
insisted  upon,  they  should  be  made  but  they  should  be  made 
a  provision  in  the  standard  of  admission,   not  as  a  part  of 


normal  instruction.  The  normal  school  must  preserve 
distinct  its  identity  as  a  technical  school. 

Preparation  for  Class  Teaching  Exclusively: — The  fac- 
ulty, as  a  further  limitation,  decided  to  confine  the  school's 
energy  strictly  to  the  effort  of  preparing  students  to  teach 
well  those  subjects  which  usually  constitute  the  course  of 
study  in  the  primary  and  grammar  schools;  and  to  disavow 
distinctly  all  ambitious  notions  of  preparing  special  teachers, 
supervisors,  superintendents,  etc.  The  normal  school 
course  at  best  is  none  too  long  and  this  scattering  of  energy 
over  a  number  of  occasional  purposes  has  too  often  weak- 
ened efficiency  in  essentials.  The  San  Francisco  school  has 
undertaken  the  single  problem  of  giving  its  students,  by 
technical  pedagogic  study  and  actual  teaching  of  classes, 
familiarity  in  presenting  all  standard  subjects,  and  experi- 
ence in  practically  all  the  grades  of  the  school.  Those 
applicants  for  admission  who  express  a  desire  for  courses 
which  should  prepare  them  for  the  larger  executive  fields  of 
education,  such  as  supervision  and  superintendency,  are 
advised  first  to  take  a  thorough  course  in  the  university  as  a 
preliminary  basis  for  such  a  field.  The  San  Francisco  school 
limits  itself  to  the  more  modest  field  of  thorough  preparation 
in  the  details  of  class  teaching. 

The  Three  Functions  of  Normal  Schools: — The 
history  of  education,  common  experience  and  the  judgment 
of  expert  school  men  are  in  tolerable  agreement  that  the 
three  chief  essentials  of  efficiency  in  teaching  are : 

A  Teaching  Personality. 

General  Scholarship  and  Culture. 

Ability  in  the  Arts  of  Teaching. 

These  essentials  are  not  stated  in  any  order  of  relative 
importance.  It  is  impossible  to  do  this  for  each  has  a 
distinct  function,  and  to  fulfill  this  function  each  is  indis- 
pensable. The*  error  preeminent  in  the  preparation  of 
teachers  has  been  ihat  loose  kind  of  thinking  which  has 
assumed  that  one  of  these  essentials,  in  high  degree,  can 
serve  as  a  substitute  for  either  or  both  the  others.  Once  a 
disputant  becomes  a  special    pleader    for    one    of    these 

6 


essentials,  it  seems  necessary,  in  order  to  assert  the  im- 
portance of  this  quality,  to  maintain  that  the  others  are 
insignificant  and  may  be  disregarded.  Popular  observers, 
as  a  class,  have  been  prone  to  deify  personality  to  the  denial 
of  the  art  of  teaching  and  scholarship;  pedants  and  profes- 
sional scholars  deify  scholarship  to  the  denial  of  personality 
and  the  acquired  arts;  and  it  has  been  the  weakness  of 
normal  schools,  in  their  turn,  to  put  forth  the  arts  of 
instruction  in  the  light  of  such  importance  that  in  practice 
they  have  minimized  scholarship  and  disregarded  the 
function  of  personality.  Yet  it  is  manifest  without  argu- 
ment that  each  of  these  qualifications  in  itself  is,  to  a 
certain  degree,  an  indispensable  requisite.  In  the  prepara- 
tion of  teachers,  provision  must  be  made  to  secure  each  of 
these  qualifications.  The  plan  of  the  San  Francisco 
Normal  School  includes  distinct  provisions  for  each  of  these 
essentials.  The  provision  for  general  scholarship  is  made 
by  the  requirements  for  admission  and  the  school,  as  a 
strictly  technical  institution,  does  not  attempt  to  add  to  the 
general  scholarship  represented  by  the  standard  of  admis- 
sion. That  knowledge  which  is  technical  to  teaching, 
receives  treatment.  The  internal  working  of  the  school 
will  therefore  now  be  discussed  under  the  following  head- 
ings arranged  for  convenience  of  treatment  in  the  follow- 
ing order : 

1.  Selection  of  Personality. 

2.  Teaching  the  Arts  of  Instruction:  (a)  the  arts  of 
practice,  (b)  technical  scholarship. 

The  Selection  of  Personality: — Personality  is  much 
more  readily  recognized  than  defined  in  words.  Perhaps, 
in  a  general  way,  we  may  say  that  the  suitable  teaching 
personality  usually  includes  a  warmth  of  sympathy  for 
children,  a  certain  simplicity  of  character  and  manner  of 
thought,  a  kind  of  earnestness,  gentleness  with  a  reserve 
of  firmness,  patience,  cheeriness  and  often  qualities  of  tone 
of  voice,  gesture,  movements,  carriage,  facial  expression 
and  mannerisms  of  address.  That  these  qualities,  or 
deficiencies  in  them,  play  a  most  vital  role  in  the  make-up 

7 


of  the  efficiency  of  a  teacher  goes  without  saying.  In  the 
casual  judgment  of  most  lay  observers,  these  elements  of 
superior  personality  are  accepted  as  completing  the  quali- 
fications of  any  teacher;  and  school  trustees,  in  a  large 
percentage  of  their  selections,  go  no  further  than  to 
consider  the  personality,  ■'which,  to  their  minds,  is  a 
substitute  for  the  art  of  teaching,  or,  to  a  certain  limit, 
for  scholarship.  Further,  in  most  thoughtful  observers' 
convictions,  scholarship  without  personality  is  hopelessly 
inefficient,  while  the  arts  of  instruction  cannot  even  be 
acquired  without  it.  It  is  a  conditio  sine  qua  non.  The 
striking  feature  of  personality  is  the  fact  that  it  is  inborn 
and  cannot  be  acquired.  No  system  of  instruction,  no 
training  can  furnish  it  to  those  who  lack  it.  All  that  we 
may  acquire  of  personality  we  may  class  under  arts  of 
teaching. 

In  the  mere  statement  of  what  personality  is,  therefore, 
the  normal  school,  which  undertakes  to  fit  persons  for  the 
occupation  of  teaching,  is  confronted  by  a  perpendicular 
difficulty.  Here  is  something  which  is  one  indispensable 
essential  of  efficiency  in  teaching,  and  yet  it  is  something 
which  no  system  of  instruction  can  supply.  Scholarship 
and  the  arts  of  teaching  are  essentials  which  can  be  taught, 
but  personality,  also  an  absolute  essential,  is  not  a  product 
of  acquirement. 

It  is  a  most  singular  fact  that  in  the  entire  history  of 
the  development  of  the  normal  school  idea,  we  do  not  find 
provision  which  in  any  systematic  way  deals  with  this  vital 
fact,  yet  it  conditions  success  at  the  outset.  Manifestly, 
by  the  very  nature  of  personality  there  is  only  one  possible 
system  of  dealing  with  it — persons  who  are  essentially 
lacking  in  those  inborn  native  qualities  which  make 
personality  must  be  eliminated  from  the  normal  schools,  if 
the  normal  school  is  to  graduate  efficient  teachers.  But 
not  only  has  there  been  no  practical  system  of  elimination 
in  operation,  but  even  the  theoretical  admission  of  the 
importance  of  personality  has  never  been  prominent  in 
normal  school  pedagogy.     Students  have  been  admitted  to 

8 


the  normal  school  upon  examinations  testing  scholarship ; 
they  have  made  their  successive  steps  of  progress  by  virtue 
of  the  same  test  and  finally  have  been  graduated  upon  a 
basis  of  examinations  showing  merely  ability  to  acquire 
knowledge.  As  will  be  later  discussed,  the  ability  to  state 
theories  of  education,  or  even  verbally  to  describe  arts  or 
methods  of  teaching,  has  very  little  bearing  upon  the 
actual  ability  to  teach  efficiently.  It  is  just  in  this  gap 
between  verbal  knowledge  and  really  doing  the  thing,  that 
personality  enters  as  the  determining  factor.  If  the  system 
of  preparing  teachers  neglects  the  consideration  of  per- 
sonality, as  an  essential  factor,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
so  large  a  percentage  of  normal  graduates  and  also  univer- 
sity graduates,  who  have  stood  the  highest  tests  of 
examinations  upon  paper,  fail  as  teachers.  They  fail 
because  they  have  not  the  inborn  birthright  to  teach. 
Scholarship  and  verbal  knowledge  of  the  arts  of  instruction, 
without  this  ordination  by  nature,  is  as  useful  as  a  well 
filled  lamp  without  a  match  by  which  to  light  it.  It  is 
difficult  to  comprehend  who  is  benefited  by  this  neglect  to 
eliminate  those  who  have  not  the  personality  suitable  for 
teaching — certainly  not  those  unfortunates  who  are 
trundled  through  the  normal  schools  and  colleges,  and  are 
finally  certificated  only  to  discover,  perhaps  after  years  of 
repeated  failures  when  it  is  too  late  to  start  life  over  again, 
that  they  have  been  deluded  into  a  calling  which  could 
never  yield  them  the  fruits  of  their  legitimate  ambition ; 
certainly  not  the  unfortunate  children  whose  lives  must  be 
seriously  affected ;  and,  finally,  for  the  normal  schools  this 
neglect  to  eliminate  the  unsuitable  in  personality,  has 
certainly  been  a  most  shortsighted  policy.  It  assists  in 
accounting  for  the  singular  fact  that  the  whole  theory  of 
professional  training  is  still  a  question  in  the  public  mind. 
Defects  in  personality  are  quickly  recognized  by  the  public 
mind,  and  these  failures  have  been  charged  to  normal 
school  training.  One  chief  function  of  a  normal  school, 
therefore,  must  be  to  select  suitable  personalities,  and  rig- 
jdly  to  eliminate  those  who  are  essentially  lacking. 


In  view  of  these  facts,  the  San  Francisco  Normal 
School  has  felt  itself  called  upon  to  meet  this  problem  of 
selecting  the  personality  of  those  whom  it  undertakes  to 
graduate  as  teachers,  as  a  duty  which  permits  no  com- 
promise. It  is  a  duty  which  the  school  owes,  not  only  to 
the  State  and  the  public  school  system,  but  also  to  its 
students  as  individuals.  If  a  student  is  handicapped  by 
inborn  qualities  unfitting  her  to  realize  reasonable  ambi- 
tions in  the  field  of  teaching,  then  it  is  clearly  a  service  to 
such  a  student  to  discover  this  fact  as  early  as  possible  that 
she  may  seek  some  other  and  more  suitable  calling.  The 
members  of  the  faculty  recognize  that  in  undertaking  to 
select  teaching  personalities,  they  are  assuming  an  exceed- 
ingly grave  and  difficult  responsibility.  Judgment  at  best 
is  liable  to  err,  either  favorably  or  unfavorably.  However, 
in  practice,  a  just  and  simple  process  of  elimination  has 
made  the  task  much  easier  than  it  seems.  The  system  in 
vogue  in  most  normal  schools  of  giving  instruction  in  the 
theory  of  education  first  and  concentrating  all  actual 
practice  in  teaching  into  a  few  months  at  the  end  of  the 
course,  has  served  as  a  serious  detriment  to  any  system  of 
eliminating  unsuitable  personalities.  The  proper  teaching 
personality  is  tested  only  by  actual  teaching  and  this 
system  therefore  throws  the  decision  of  personality  into 
the  last  months  of  the  normal  course.  It  is  then  rather 
late  to  make  decision,  even  if  the  limited  time  given  to 
training  were  adequate  justly  to  make  such  a  vital 
determination.  The  system  of  the  San  Francisco  Normal 
School  requires  that  the  new  students  should  immediately 
enter  the  training  school  for  one  third  of  each  day,  as  assist- 
ant teachers,  and  their  duties  gradually  increase  until  they 
have  complete  charge.  Their  actual  teaching  extends 
over  the  whole  period  of  their  normal  school  course  of  two 
years  or  more.  They  are  thus  early  brought  into  contact 
with  children  and  with  the  working  atmosphere  of  the 
classroom.  They  are  under  constant  but  sympathetic 
observation  of  the  members  of  the  normal  school  faculty. 
After  a  time,  sometimes  in  ten  weeks,  and  generally  in  six 

lO 


months,  the  faculty  having  compared  impressions,  render 
a  joint  judgment  of  the  personality  of  each  student,  as  well 
as  of  the  scholarship  and  ability  to  acquire  the  arts  of 
instruction.  This  judgment  is  frankly  stated  to  the 
student.  It  is  a  distinct  understanding  that  the  judgment 
upon  personality  is  merely  advisory  in  force ;  the  faculty 
does  not  undertake  the  grave  responsibility  of  dismissal 
except  in  extreme  cases.  The  student  is  permitted  to 
continue  in  attendance,  if  she  chooses,  but  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  of  course  understood  that  no  certificate  of 
graduation  will  be  issued  until  the  faculty  feels  prepared 
to  assume  the  responsibility  for  the  success  of  the  person 
concerned  as  a  teacher. 

The  practical  working  out  of  this  system  justifies  it. 
The  records  show  that  about  twenty  per  cent,  of  the 
students  who  enter  the  normal  school  later  drop  out  by 
reason  of  these  judgments  of  unsuitable  personality.  All 
unfavorable  judgments  of  the  faculty  stated  to  students 
have  been  practically  unanimous.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
students  concerned  are  themselves  almost  as  quick  and 
ready  to  realize  that  they  have  mistaken  their  calling  as 
the  members  of  the  faculty,  and  they  have  certainly, 
almost  without  exception,  shown  an  admirable  spirit  in  the 
matter.  No  student  has  thus  far  been  formally  dismissed, 
because  this  step  has  not  yet  proven  necessary. 

The  Arts  of  Teaching: — First,  what  are  these  arts 
which  the  normal  school  may  legitimately  profess  to 
furnish  provided  the  essentials  of  inborn  personality  exist 
in  the  student?  Examples  of  a  few  may  easily  be  men- 
tioned :  methods  of  teaching  the  first  steps  of  reading  to 
beginners;  the  use  of  correct  language  forms  in  speech 
and  composition,  the  ability  to  manipulate  figures  in  the 
common  operations  with  accuracy  and  rapidity  and  with 
the  least  expenditure  of  time;  methods  of  presenting 
geographical  and  historical  facts  and  science  so  that,  with 
the  least  expenditure  of  the  pupil's  time,  the  essential 
elements  of  knowledge  contained  in  them  may  serve 
the    later    practical    purposes  of  intelligent     citizenship; 

II 


devices  of    management  of  groups    of    pupils  in  classes, 
etc.,  etc. 

The  schools  are  suffering  at  present  no  more  keenly 
from  any  defect  than  from  the  lack,  or  careless  administra- 
tion, of  many  of  these  teaching  arts.  There  are  many 
methods  of  this  character  in  use  of  widely  varying  efficiency 
even  in  teachers  of  the  same  favorable  conditions  of  per- 
sonality. In  many  schools  beginners  in  reading,  for  ex- 
ample, make  more  progress  in  two  years,  under  certain  arts 
of  instruction  than  under  others  in  four  years,  yet  both  have 
teachers  of  equal  personality.  It  should  readily  be  admitted 
that  these  superior  arts  may  be  acquired  by  unaided  personal 
experience  without  normal  training.  But  personal  experi- 
ence by  the  process  of  trial  and  error  may  be  very  slow  and 
the  errors  of  inexperience  may  become  fixed  and  irradicable 
defects  of  habit  which  even  the  most  favored  personality 
cannot  offset.  It  is  an  injustice  to  pupils  to  permit  a 
teacher,  who  in  time  may  possibly  acquire  the  arts  of 
teaching  by  years  of  experience  to  gain  her  power  of  teach- 
ing at  the  expense  of  the  children  who  unfortunately  come 
under  her  instruction  during  this  formative  period.  Herein 
lies  the  chief  justification  for  the  establishment  of  the 
normal  school.  If  it  will  eliminate  the  unsuitable  personali- 
ties, it  can  teach  the  arts  of  instruction  so  that  the  teachers 
whom  it  sends  forth  can  enter  the  public  schoolroom  as 
fully  competent. 

Teaching  the  Arts  of  Instruction: — Two  systems 
have  been  offered  in  history  for  the  preparation  of  teachers 
for  their  duties — instruction  in  the  theory  of  education 
(under  which  term  we  may  include  psychology,  pedagogy, 
the  history  of  education  and  all  other  knowledge  technical 
to  teaching),  and  actual  practice  in  a  training  school. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  so  large  a  number  of  intelli- 
gent persons,  and  intelligent  institutions  for  training  teach- 
ers, have  regarded  these  two  methods  as  alternatives  for 
each  other,  and  assume  that  each  can,  more  or  less  per- 
fectly, serve  as  a  substitute  for  the  other.  Each  has  its 
special  pleaders  and  in  these  disputes  the  question  to  b§ 

12 


settled  seems  ever  to  be  which  is  the  better  of  the  two. 
It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  either  side  of  the  controversy 
that  theory  and  practice  have  separate  and  distinct  func- 
tions. Practice  forms  habits  of  teaching-  and  no  amount  of 
theoretic  pedagogy  can  establish  these  habits,  just  as  it  is 
impossible  for  any  amount  of  theoretical  physics  concern- 
ing the  principles  of  equilibrium  to  teach  a  person  to  ride 
a  bicycle.  On  the  other  hand,  the  most  skilful  bicycle 
riders  have  rarely  developed  the  principles  of  equilibrium. 
The  theory  of  equilibrium  and  the  habit  of  bicycle  riding 
are  separate  and  distinct.  The  same  relation,  or  rather 
lack  of  relation,  unquestionably  exists  between  practice 
and  theoretic  pedagogy.  There  are  excellent  teachers 
in  practice  who  know  no  theory,  and  there  are  excellent 
theorists  who  cannot  teach.  We  meet  both  classes  every 
day  and  each  is  entitled  to  our  respect.  Practice  enables 
one  to  go  into  a  schoolroom  and  conduct  a  class.  Peda- 
gogy furnishes  a  perspective  of  intelligence  which  enables 
the  teacher  to  know  the  ultimate  purposes  of  her  teaching, 
to  explain  the  goals  of  her  practice.  But  practice  and 
pedagogical  knowledge  are  in  no  sense  interchangeable, 
but  are  complementary  to  each  other,  and  every  teacher 
should  receive  training  in  both.  For  class  teachers,  how- 
ever, if  either  one  must  be  slighted  it  would  better  be 
theory  rather  than  practice,  for  the  class  teacher  must  have 
skill  in  actual  teaching ;  she  also  ought  to  have  perspec- 
tive. If  she  works  under  the  direction  of  those  who  pos- 
sess both  good  theory  and  good  practice,  theory  for  her  is 
not  so  essential.  It  is  certainly  a  singular  fact  that  a  large 
number  of  normal  schools  at  present  and  many  colleges  are 
pretending  to  send  forth  well-equipped  teachers  without 
any  training,  or  very  inadequate  training,  in  actual  teach- 
ing. Their  students  are  given  theoretical  instruction  under 
the  false  notion  that  it  is  a  substitute  for  practice  and 
serves  the  same  end.  One  equally  faulty  notion  exists  in 
a  current  system  which  devotes  a  long  preliminary  period 
to  theoretical  education  followed  by  a  short  period  at  the 
end  of  the  course  when  the  student  devotes  all  of  her  time 

13 


to  practice.  Apparently  it  is  supposed  that  theories  can  be 
readily  applied.  A  student  filled  with  theory  is  not  much 
better  oflE  in  the  classroom  for  the  first  time  than  one  without 
it.  One  who  learns  precepts  for  riding  a  bicycle  is  not 
much  better  prepared  for  the  task  than  one  who  has  no 
precepts.  Skill  in  teaching  as  in  every  other  kind  of  habit 
acquirement  is  almost  exclusively  the  product  of  practice. 
To  acquire  any  habit  requires  a  certain  period  of  time,  and 
it  cannot  be  formed  suddenly  by  merely  increasing  the 
hours  of  practice  per  day.  Moreover,  habits  which  a 
teacher  acquires  in  teaching  arithmetic  are  not  the  same  in 
kind  as  those  she  must  acquire  for  conducting  a  recitation 
in  history.  The  system  of  crowding  the  habit  acquire- 
ments of  actual  teaching  into  a  few  months  at  the  end  of  a 
normal  course  is  one  which  cannot  systematically  produce 
well-equipped  teachers.  Those  of  good  personality  obtain 
certain  powers  of  discipline  which  enable  them,  as  later 
teachers,  to  conceal  their  deficiencies  in  other  arts  until  ex- 
perience perhaps  teaches  these.  Training  in  practice 
should  extend  over  the  entire  normal  school  course  and  a 
limited  set  of  habits  should  be  taken  up  for  acquirement  at 
one  time ;  that  is,  the  teacher  should  be  drilled  in  the  tech- 
nique of  teaching  one  or  two  studies  at  a  time,  and  when 
these  are  mastered  other  techniques  may  be  added. 

Training  School  Teaching: — Actual  teaching  is  sup- 
plied in  the  San  Francisco  Normal  School  by  a  Training 
School  of  about  275  pupils,  distributed  into  eighteen  or 
twenty  separate  classes  representing  the  eight  grades  of 
the  primary  and  grammar  schools.  The  number  in  each 
class  varies  from  ten  to  twenty  or  even  twenty-five  pupils. 
The  Training  School  is  entirely  under  the  direction  of  the 
Normal  School.  At  first  tuition  in  the  Training  School  was 
free,  but  numbers  increased  and  a  tuition  fee  is  now 
charged  to  all  new  pupils  in  the  grammar  grades.  Inas- 
much as  there  are  practically  no  academic  courses  in  the 
normal  department  all  of  the  members  of  the  faculty  are 
essentially  what  is  generally  known  as  "critic"  teachers  in 
the  Training  School,  but  this  term  is  not  used,     "Super- 

X4 


visor"  is  preferred  as  being  free  from  the  unpleasant  sug- 
gestions of  the  word  "critic".  Each  supervisor  has  a  cer- 
tain number  of  classes  and  the  teachers  thereof  under  his 
or  her  direct  supervision.  The  Principal  of  the  Training 
School  is  responsible  for  the  discipline  of  the  classes  and 
also  trains  the  student  teachers  in  such  arts  of  discipline  as 
may  be  acquired.  The  Training  School  has  three  changes 
of  student  teachers  each  day.  One  section  of  student 
teachers,  known  as  the  A  Section,  teaches  the  classes  under 
direction  of  supervisors  from  9  to  10.30:  the  B  Section  has 
charge  from  10.30  to  12  M. ;  and  the  C  Section  in  the  after- 
noon period.  Each  student  of  the  Normal  School,  from 
the  day  of  her  admission  to  the  day  of  her  graduation, 
teaches  or  assists  in  teaching  a  class  during  one  of  the 
periods  stated.  The  remainder  of  her  time  is  devoted  to 
preparing  lessons  for  her  class,  in  grade  conferences  which 
will  be  later  explained,  in  attendance  upon  classes  in  theory 
of  education,  in  training  in  special  adaptation  of  material 
for  teaching,  such  as  elementary  science  for  the  schools, 
drawing,  music,  manual  training,  sewing,  etc. 

Each  supervisor  has  a  certain  number  of  classes  and  their 
student  teachers  under  his  or  her  direct  supervision.  The 
duties  of  supervisor  require  a  tactful  management  to  the 
end  that  both  pupils  and  the  student  teachers  themselves 
shall  keenly  feel  that  the  student  teachers  are  in  completely 
responsible  charge  of  the  rooms.  The  supervisors  give 
model  lessons  in  the  classrooms,  observe  the  work  of  the 
student  teachers,  and  also  the  progress  of  individual  pupils, 
but  all  direction  of  the  student  teachers  is  done  behind  the 
scenes  by  personal  advice,  and  by  the  system  of  teachers* 
conferences.  The  advantage  of  this  arrangement  is  that 
every  student  obtains  practice  in  teaching  under  skilled 
direction  covering  the  period  of  her  entire  normal  school 
course,  the  minimum  length  of  which  is  two  years;  the 
class  work  for  which  she  has  daily  to  prepare  is  limited  in 
amount  to  that  which  she  can  thoroughly  do  well  and  in- 
creases with  her  power  as  she  obtains  this  by  growth  of 
experience ;  the  pupils  have  three  times  a  day  a  new  per- 

15 


sonality  in  their  teachers,  who  come  freshly  and  thoroughly 
prepared  to  make  the  most  of  each  lesson  for  the  limited 
period  she  is  with  them ;  the  student  teachers  and  pupils 
are  under  the  constant  supervision  of  the  supervisors  who, 
without  exception,  are  persons  of  university  training, 
broad  pedagogical  knowledge  and  experience  of  years 
standing  in  the  public  schools. 

To  each  class  of  pupils  two  student  teachers  at  a  time 
are  assigned,  but  the  amount  of  teaching  each  may  do  va- 
ries. Upon  entrance  to  the  school,  the  new  student  is  as- 
signed as  an  assistant  to  a  student  teacher  of  experience. 
The  assistant  at  first  does  not  have  responsible  charge  of 
the  class,  but  assists  in  various  ways  until  she  catches  the 
spirit  of  the  schoolroom.  Then  gradually  she  is  given  ad- 
ditional duties  and  is  intrusted  with  responsibility.  No 
period  is  fixed  when  an  assistant  is  given  responsible 
charge  of  a  class.  A  very  few,  of  singular  capability,  have 
reached  this  stage  in  ten  weeks,  but  more  often  in  twenty 
weeks,  while  a  few  have  remained  in  the  school  nearly  two 
years  and  have  finally  left  without  rising  above  the  stage 
of  assistant.  Whenever  it  is  clear  to  the  supervisors  that 
a  certain  assistant  has  not  the  essential  elements  of  the 
necessary  personality,  or  is  fatally  defective,  she  is  kindly 
but  firmly  informed  of  the  judgment.  If  she  herself  is 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  judgment  she  generally 
leaves  the  school,  but  she  is  not  compelled  to  leave.  If  no 
improvement  sufficient  to  change  the  faculty's  judgment 
occurs  she  of  course  is  never  given  the  responsibility  of  a 
class  and  can  therefore  never  be  graduated. 

Every  ten  weeks  each  student  who  has  done  acceptable 
work  in  her  class  is  changed  to  another  section  and  grade. 
For  example,  a  student  who  successfully  conducts  a  class 
in  reading  in  the  first  grade,  will  be  changed  to  some  other 
grade  and  subject  for  a  period  of  a  second  ten  weeks.  As 
there  are  forty  weeks  in  a  year  and  the  minimum  exper- 
ience for  graduation  is  two  years,  there  is  opportunity  for 
eight  changes  of  grade  and  subject  during  the  course. 
This  enables  every  graduate  to  have  experience  of  ten 

l6 


weeks  in  practically  every  one  of  the  eight  grades,  and  nec- 
essarily all  of  the  following  fifteen  subjects: — primary 
grades:  reading,  language,  phonic  reading,  nature  study, 
composition,  primary  arithmetic,  primary  map  geography ; 
grammar  grades :  arithmetic,  commercial  geography,  phy- 
sical geography,  history,  grammar,  composition,  literature, 
drawing,  and  music.  Every  graduate  must  have  ranked 
as  teacher  with  responsibility  of  the  classroom  work  and 
discipline  for  at  least  six  of  these  changes  or  a  period  of 
sixty  weeks, 

77!^  Conference  System: — Corresponding  in  number  of 
lessons  which  each  student  teacher  teaches  in  the  Training 
School,  the  supervisor  of  each  subject  conducts  what  are 
termed  "conferences"  of  these  student  teachers.  Thus, 
for  example,  as  the  student  teachers  of  primary  arithmetic 
teach  five  periods  per  week,  there  are  also  five  conferences 
of  these  teachers  per  week  under  direction  of  the  super- 
visor of  this  subject.  So  also  in  all  subjects  there  are  as 
many  conference  gatherings  under  direction  of  the  respec- 
tive supervisors  as  there  are  class  recitations  in  the  training 
school.  The  conferences  of  a  given  group  of  students 
upon  a  given  subject  continues  as  long  as  they  teach  this 
subject,  i.  e,  ten  weeks.  The  character  of  the  conference 
work  is  of  the  same  general  type  as  that  of  well  conducted 
grade  meetings  of  teachers  in  the  public  schools.  The 
supervisor  assigns  for  study  and  reports,  references  to 
pedagogical  theory  and  methodology  and  courses  of  study 
in  the  public  school  bearing  upon  the  subject  under  treat- 
ment. Free  discussions  of  these  ensue.  The  supervisor 
exacts,  in  advance,  plans  of  the  recitations  the  students 
propose  to  conduct  and  these  are  offered  as  material  for 
discussion  in  the  conferences.  The  supervisor  also  takes 
opportunity  in  these  conferences  to  regulate  the  course  of 
study  in  the  training  school,  to  submit  various  good 
methods,  the  pedagogical  basis  of  which  is  discussed,  to 
correct  daily  errors,  etc. ,  etc.  The  aim  of  the  supervisor 
in  these  conferences  is  to  equip  the  student  teacher  with 
the  perspective  and  background  of  pedagogical  and  psy- 

17 


chological  theory,  but  he  especially  avoids  forming  hard 
and  fast  connections  of  theory.  In  the  actual  teaching, 
however,  the  supervisor  sees  to  it  that  at  least  one  good 
method  for  dealing  with  each  problem  is  thoroughly  trained 
into  the  student  as  a  habit.  These  general  conferences 
are  supplemented  by  opportunity  for  personal  conferences 
with  the  supervisors.  After  the  hours  of  school  until  five 
o'clock,  and  at  such  other  occasional  hours  as  they  may  be 
free,  the  supervisors  are  at  their  desks  devoting  themselves 
to  taking  up  individual  difficulties  with  which  each  student 
teacher  may  be  laboring. 

Technical  Knowledge: — Under  this  term  we  would  in- 
clude psychology,  pedagogy,  the  history  of  education  and 
all  other  technical  knowledge  which  is  given  by  means  of 
lectures,  recitations  or  personal  study  of  books,  etc.  The 
sharp  distinction  between  the  function  of  this  kind  of  in- 
struction and  the  function  of  actual  teaching  has  already 
been  drawn.  The  function  of  the  latter  is  the  formation 
of  habits  of  technique  in  teaching  the  subjects  of  school 
study,  and  the  management  of  the  classroom.  The  func- 
tion of  technical  or  professional  knowlege  is  to  furnish 
perspective  and  a  background  of  intelligent  comprehension 
of  the  goals  and  purposes  of  school  training,  the  psychology 
of  the  methods  which  practice  has  developed,  etc.  But 
there  is  no  notion  in  the  San  Francisco  Normal  School  that 
the  courses  in  technical  or  professional  knowledge  contribute, 
except  indirectly,  to  the  active  practice  of  teaching.  This 
view  does  not  minimize  the  importance  of  theoretical  study 
for  the  intelligent  workman  is  ever  more  efficient  than  the 
rule-of-thumb  laborer.  Technical  knowledge  is  a  necessary 
complement  to  practice;  it  makes  practice  intelligent  teach- 
ing. The  point  we  would  emphasize  is  that  theory  is  not 
practice,  and  cannot  take  the  place  of  practice. 

Two  parallel  lines  of  theoretical  study  are  used.  One 
line  consists  of  a  general  course,  five  to  three  periods  a 
week,  in  psychology,  the  history  of  education  and  pedagogy, 
which  is  given  throughout  the  entire  two  years.  Another 
line,  presenting  the  special  pedagogy  of  each  school  subject, 

i8 


is  carried  along  in  the  supervisors'  conferences.  The  general 
course  aims  to  furnish  a  general  culture  and  perspective  for 
pedagogical  questions  and  to  offer  a  sort  of  forum  for  the 
thorough  discussion  of  past  and  prevailing  theories  of  edu- 
cation. The  method  is  that  of  topical  readings  followed  by 
class  digests  and  discussions  of  these.  In  this  way  there 
are  presented  the  general  conceptions  of  physiological  psy- 
chology ;  the  theories  of  heredity ;  the  psychology  of  atten- 
tion, memory,  imagination,  reasoning,  perception  and 
abstraction;  the  distinction  between  the  pedagogy  of  the 
intellect  and  the  pedagogy  of  the  feelings ;  such  pedagogical 
problems  as  those  of  formal  discipline,  correlation,  the  Soc- 
ratic  method  of  the  recitation;  the  history  of  various  sys- 
tems of  educations  in  the  light  of  previous  readings;  special 
applications  to  purposes  and  values  of  teaching  history, 
mathematics,  literature,  the  formal  mechanisms, music,  draw- 
ing, etc.  There  is  no  effort  in  the  general  course  to  teach 
these  ^subjects  for  themselves,  but  at  every  point  possible 
the  students  are  .led  to  the  application  of  these  general  views 
to  the  practical  problems  of  the  classroom.  The  reading 
materials  which  serve  as  a  basis  for  this  course  includes  cur- 
rent books  and  articles  by  the  following  authors:  James, 
Donaldson,  Baldwin,  Groos,  Chamberlain,  Romanes,  Lloyd 
Morgan,  Butler,  Stanley  Hall,  Dewey,  Spencer,  Parker;  the 
standard  histories  of  education,  and  educational  articles 
taken  from  magazines. 

The  conference  treatment  of  technical  knowledge  is 
much  more  specific.  Each  supervisor  has  collected  all  ser- 
viceable and  available  books  and  articles  from  pedagogical 
journals  and  other  sources  bearing  upon  the  school  subject, 
the  teaching  of  which  he  or  she  supervises.  Members  of  the 
conference  in  this  subject  are  required  to  read  and  take 
notes  upon  the  books  and  articles  to  which  topical  reference 
is  made.  Then,  in  the  conference  meetings,  reports  of  these 
readings  are  subjected  to  a  discussion  in  the  light  of  the 
student's  own  experience  as  a  teacher  of  the  subject  under 
discussion.  In  this  way  the  special  pedagogy  of  arithmetic, 
reading,  writing,  spelling,  history,  grammar,  literature,  etc., 

19 


':v^^^r'''\ 


is'thoroughly  harrowed  —  and  planted  by  daily  experience. 
In  addition  to  these  there  are  special  courses,  academic  in 
method  but  technical  in  that  they  prepare  the  student 
teacher  in  those  phases  of  the  subject  specially  for  teaching. 
There  are  courses  in  map  drawing  "chalk  talks,"  music, 
civil  government,  history,  sewing,  nature  study,  manual 
training,  and  plant  physiology. 

As  a  summary  of  the  distinctive  elements  in  the  plan  of 
the  San  Francisco  State  Normal  School  the  following 
features  niay  be  stated:  the  school  is  a  strictly  professional 
school  requiring  for  admission  the  same  degree  of  general 
scholarship  as  that  set  by  the  universities,  but  it  does  not 
include  general  scholarship  in  its  courses  of  instruction. 
Systematic  provision  is  made  for  the  selection  of  persons 
possessing  the  inborn  teaching  personality  and  for  the 
elimination  of  those  who  are  lacking  in  essentials  of 
personality.  The  purpose  of  the  school  is  limited  to  the 
preparation  of  students  of  selected  personality  to  be  class 
teachers  in  the  primary  and  grammar  grades.  This  prepa- 
ration consists  of  training  in  the  arts  of  instruction  as  habits, 
and  in  the  technical  pedagogy  and  theory  of  teaching  the 
school  subjects  as  perspective  to  the  arts  acquired  in  the 
Training  School.  The  actual  teaching  of  the  Training 
School  provides  for  the  practice  of  ten  weeks  in  each  grade 
and  in  all  standard  subjects  of  the  primary  and  grammar 
school,  under  careful  supervision,  covering  a  practical  ex- 
perience of  at  least  two  years.  The  daily  teaching  is 
accompanied  by  the  study  of  the  theoretic  pedagogy  of  the 
subjects  taught  in  the  Training  School. 

Frederick  Burk 

State  Normal  School, 
San  Francisco,  California 


U,C  BERKELEY  LlBKARlLb 


CDME4D77fl5 


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